Droid Razr Best Motorola Android Phone Yet

Motorola Mobility's Droid Razr 4G LTE smartphone launches Nov. 11 for $299.99 on contract from Verizon Wireless. This speedy Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread phone is at the top of its class in form factor and power.

Motorola
Mobility (NYSE:MMI) is clearly taunting me. One year after purchasing the
Android OEM's serviceable Droid X smartphone, I am playing with a phone that
blasts it apart in speed and aesthetic beauty: the Motorola Droid Razr, which goes on sale Nov. 11 for $299.99 on contract from
Verizon Wireless.
The Droid Razr
is the phone the Droid X should have been. I didn't consider the Droid X with
its 4.3-inch screen to be clunky a year ago. Yet I can't help but think that's
the case as I view it next to the Razr, which breathes new life into Motorola's
best-selling Razr feature phone legacy.

Verizon's 4G
LTE is typically a force in Fairfield County, Conn. Ookla's Speedtest
application showed the phone getting anywhere from 12 to 16M bps download
speeds, and 5 to 8M bps upload speeds on a consistent basis.
Applications
such as Angry Birds, Netflix, YouTube and Facebook and Twitter for Android
hummed along beautifully on this handset, which is a super-thin 7.1 millimeters,
or 0.28 inches, compared with 0.4 inches for the Droid X.
It's even
thinner than Samsung's thin Galaxy S II smartphones, which measure around 8.9 millimeters, or 0.35 inches. It's
also a full ounce less than my Droid X, only 4.5 ounces, which is in my opinion
the ideal weight for a phone.

While Motorola
has been outfitting its premium smartphones such as the Motorola Atrix and
Droid Bionic with quarter high-definition (qHD) screens for the last several
months (the Droid X launched with a 4.3-inch WVGA (854 x 480) screen), the
Razr's screen is a gorgeous 4.3-inch Super AMOLED (active-matrix organic LED) Advanced
qHD display with 960-by-540 resolution. It's easily the best Motorola handset
screen to date.
Moreover, the
screen is super sturdy. A smartphone so thin needs to be sturdy, so Motorola
has packed this gadget in Corning Gorilla Glass for the screen and Kevlar-yes,
the synthetic fiber renowned worldwide for its use in bulletproof vests-as the
enclosure. For added protection, it has a water-repellent coating.
Phone calls
were great on this device, whose thinness made it a real joy. I held it up to
the ear, and I detected no tinny sounds or echoes. Pictures shot with little
latency via the 8-megapixel camera, which is complemented by an HD 1.3MP
shutter in front for video chats. Video shot from that rear-facing camera
captured in 1,080p HD and output at 1,080p via High-Definition Multimedia
Interface (HDMI) to my TV.
Also, it
should be noted that the virtual QWERTY keyboard-different from even that of
the Droid Bionic-offers crisp, white lettering against a jet-black backdrop,
something that really stands out on this device.